Police spies

Howard was right to be worried about police spies in 1915. Two years later a group of anti-war campaigners were convicted of plotting to kill the Prime Minister in what most historians regard as an unfair trial. Alice Wheeldon and her family were convicted on evidence supplied by Alex Gordon and Herbert Booth, spies employed by the Ministry of Munitions who posed as peace activists.

While Laurence was growing more sympathetic to the armed forces, bank clerk Howard Marten was campaigning fervently against the war. Faced with the possibility of conscription, he was one of thousands of people to join the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF). He later talked about the people he found in the group–including those not from the peace movement, but from the police.